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April 30, 2018

Tejas moves closer to clearance after successful firing of BVR missle

The indegenous Light Combat Aircraft Tejas achieved another milestone by
successfuly test-firing an air-to-air beyond visual range (BVR) missle,
bringing it a step closer to final operation clearance, the government
said on Saturday.

Successfully demonstrating safe operation
under the worst case scenario, the missile was launched by Tejas piloted
by Wing Commander Siddharth Singh off the Goa coast.

"Integration
of Derby, a BVR class missile, is one of the major objectives of Final
Operational Clearance (FOC) of LCA Tejas," a defence statement said.

Tejas
has been designed and developed by Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO) autonomous society - Aeronautical Development Agency
(ADA).

The aircraft was tracked by two other Tejas aircraft in
close formation to capture the firing event in the specially
instrumented high-speed cameras for detailed analysis and comparison
with the simulation model for validation.

"Based on the
successful integration and demonstration, Regional Centre for Military
Airworthiness (RCMA), a unit of DRDO has cleared the series production
aircraft of Squadron 45, to be equipped with Derby operational
capability," a statement said.

The
Indian Air Force (IAF) had ordered 40 Tejas Mark-1 version. A request
for proposal was issued to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) by the
IAF in December for procurement of another batch of 83 Tejas at a cost
of around Rs 50,000 crore.